Tad hadn't come in from fishing. Ellis was up in the timber cutting firewood and Barbara was with him. The younger children, overawed at seeing two strangers at the same time, stared at them. Martha Winterson was seated at the table and Emma bustled about. "She'll wear my wedding dress," Emma was saying. "When I had to pack it to come here I was worried. I feared that it might turn yellow, but it only shaded to a soft ivory. I think it's even more beautiful that way." "Isn't it badly rumpled?" "No. I packed paper around it and between each layer, and then wrapped it in my curtains. After it's hung out to air for a few hours, the wrinkles will blow out. The sun will get rid of the camphor odor, too." "I'd love to see it!" "I'd show it to you, but Ellis might come in any minute and he mustn't see his bride's dress before she wears it. You'll see it at the wedding." "What's it like, Emma?" Emma's voice was soft. "It's white satin with short puffed melon sleeves, over which I wore full long sleeves of white silk gauze fastened at the wrist. My cape was of Swiss muslin, with rich foulard patterns stamped on it. There are short white gloves with embroidered tops; there's a small mend but it won't show. I sewed it carefully. The neck line is low. The waist line is tiny, too tiny for me now but right for Barbara." Her eyes glowed with the warmth of remembering. "Will she wear a bonnet?" "Oh yes. I have a Pamela bonnet with a blue ribbon and a colored plume. I suppose it's out of fashion now, but it's very beautiful." Ellis and Barbara came in and Emma hurriedly changed the subject. Martha Winterson rose to embrace Barbara, and turned a laughing face to kiss Ellis lightly on the cheek. Ellis blushed, and Joe grinned. He remembered his own wedding, and how embarrassed he had been when Emma's best friend, Sarah Townley, had kissed him. They had dinner. The Wintersons left, and the house was given over to preparations for the wedding. Joe shrugged away any thought of work; there would be time for that later and Winterson was right. The youngsters had to be started out correctly and Emma wanted lots of decorations. But still Joe found it impossible to sleep after the first light of dawn. Hatchet in hand, he wandered up the slope into the woods. It was too late in the season for most wild flowers, but there were fragrant, cone-laden evergreen boughs. Emma wanted the whole living room decorated with them, and Barbara would carry a bouquet of cloth flowers scented with Emma's precious perfume. About to enter the woods, Joe turned, as he always did, to look proudly over his land. His heart skipped a beat. To the west, about where he thought the Wintersons' home was, an ominous plume of thick yellow smoke reached far into the sky. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Besieged